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FYI

July 19, 1989|Compiled by TONY GABRIELE

READ MY LEGAL PADS

So much for spontaneity. Remember George Bush's quick comebacks during his heated live, on-air interview with Dan Rather? Well, it turns out that several of the then-presidential candidate's responses came from cue cards scrawled by media consultant Roger Ailes, according to "The Acting President: Ronald Reagan and the Supporting Players Who Helped Him Create the Illusion That Held America Spellbound," written by CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer and Gary Paul Gates.

Excerpts from their book appeared in a recent issue of TV Guide. "What people in the bureau and viewers at home could not see was that the response had not been entirely spontaneous. As the interview progressed, the crafty Ailes had stationed himself beside the camera," Schieffer and Gates wrote. "If Bush seemed to be struggling for a response, Ailes would write out a key word in huge letters on his yellow legal pad and hold it just beneath the camera in Bush's line of vision."

GREAT JOB, IF HE DOESN'T BURN OUT

Stuck in a rotten job? Go envy George Hamilton. The man is tan for a living. Honest.

Hamilton, the sometime Joan Collins escort and occasional actor, has decided to go into the business of what he knows best: tanning.

"I'm probably the only guy who parlayed a tan into a career," he says, launching a national tour to promote the George Hamilton Sun Care System. "Everything's paid for by suntan.

"I think that's the way life should be - your avocation should be your vocation."

His "system" offers a bronzer, moisturizers and sun protection factor creams to maintain the ultimate brown, the "Hamiltan."

No matter what the health-care experts say, the perfectly browned Hamilton is going to tan forever. After all, he couldn't let Zonker Harris down.

SAIL IT AGAIN, SAM

The African Queen has sailed away to Key Largo, where it has taken over James Hendricks' life.

Hendricks, a hotel owner on that Florida key, has become the caretaker of the 77-year-old boat that once co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.

"When I first bought it, I thought it would be an eye catcher that I could leave out front," said Hendricks, 65. "But, it's been a lot more."

The 30-foot boat is battered and faded, but it still has movie star allure. For several years, Hendricks took Queen devotees on a 3-mile canal trip from the hotel to the ocean. Then the U.S. Coast Guard informed him that only vessels constructed in the United States can be used for commercial purposes here. (The Queen was built in England.)

Hendricks got his senator and congressman to introduce twin bills to exempt the Queen from the law. A Senate subcommittee has approved one bill, while the other awaits approval in the House.

The boat, by the way, wasn't just a movie prop; it began life as an honest-to-goodness African steam launch, built in 1912 to carry freight and passengers on Lake Alberta in Uganda. Director John Huston discovered the boat as he was preparing to film "The African Queen," the 1952 saga about a missionary spinster and a drunken boat captain.

After the filming, the Queen went back to work as a freighter. Hendricks bought it in 1982 and brought it to Key Largo - setting of another Bogart film.

Last week's answer: What Hog Island, Ragged Island, Plum Tree Island and Mulberry Island have in common is that they're not really islands - at least not in the usual sense of being separated from the mainland by a stretch of water. (You may have to wade through a marsh or ford a little creek to get onto them, though.)

Hog Island is the swampy point sticking out into the James River near the Surry nuclear plant; Ragged Island is a similar area along the James just east of the Isle of Wight side of the James River Bridge; Plum Tree Island is the farthest reach of Poquoson facing the Chesapeake Bay; and Mulberry Island is the peninsula that you might call Fort Eustis' back yard.

This week's question: Speaking of Plum Tree Island: Even though it's in booming Poquoson, don't expect to see any development there anytime soon. Why?